Isilel

So, the spike _is_ corrupted investiture - it is Autonomy's metal used for Ruin's Art and charged with Preservation's investiture. No idea about the red in harmonium's spectrum, though.

Wasn't it just the one metal aether that did that? IIRC, the other heinous thing was that these pieces of infrastructure, called corpates, were still sentient and required companions.

She could get a cameo - she'd be 80 if Sanderson chooses to go with 50 years, and if she decides to burn cadmium to see the future, she might be around even a few decades later. But she won't be a supporting character - Era 3 is supposed to involve Kelsier and Marsh in significant ways, so there won't be room for yet more legacy characters without stifling the new protagonists.

From what we have seen, Skybreakers only get 1 or 2 squires apiece. Windrunners are the ones who have lots of squires due to their resonance.

Yes, there is a lot of worry about Harmony's Intents and how Sazed's core personally is affected, but Kelsier as a sliver of Preservation is also influenced by it's Intent. And IMHO, his "every world a threat" mentality is Preservation Intent going into overdrive in not necessarily constructive ways. For instance, it is fairly likely that that a Cold War with Roshar in Sixth of the Dusk is the result of Kelsier's meddling that we have witnessed in SA. It may have also attracted Autonomy's attention. Those other worlds may be becoming hostile to Ghostbloods for a good reason... Rosharans are certainly developing a justified grudge, due to being a target of _heavy_ interference.

It is a popular theory on reddit, but it doesn't really make much sense, IMHO. People became really hung up on Kelsier's statement that it is impossible to steelpush over an open ocean, but Elendel bay isnt that - it is much more shallow and has other boats and structures to serve as coinshot anchors. Not to mention that Steris didn't think that there was anything strange with their actions, nor did she notice their unusual height. And yes, native Scadrians can worry about legalities too! Particularly when they are members of a secret organization, who are forced to act openly in ways that might damage their cover. Furthermore, it is completely illogical for Ghostbloods on Scadrial to consist entirely of offworlders. It already strained suspension of disbelief that the Bilming office was staffed exclusively by them. Re: Kaladin and Vasher in RoW, I found Kaladin not questioning the latter's odd powers and weird lecture on investiture to be completely unbelievable. Ditto that it never occurred to him later during the occupation to go to Zahel for help. This is absolutely not how powers from other worlds should be introduced!

Oh, absolutely. Also, you can store allomantic senses in tin too: https://wob.coppermind.net/events/316/#e9199 So, bronze senses, steelsight, sense of balance and timing that constitutes A-pewter "grace". This is an extremely versatile and useful power, which is going to become even more so when unkeyed metalminds will become more common. I really expected the Ghostbloods to have medallions with it, but medallion use was apparently taboo in TLM, alas...

I sorta agree, but not because of the cosmere elements, but rather because a number of important Scadrial issues established in the previous books, particularly BoM, have been carefully avoided because they are clearly reserved for Era 3. It felt very contrived and artificial in some cases. Like, not only did we learn nothing new about the medallions, they weren't even used by anybody in TLM! Not even the varieties already familiar to us, which could have been very handy for everybody except Wax. Bands of Mourning quickly shuffled away from the scene without any explanation of anything concerning them. We still know practically nothing about the southerners and what their lives are like. Marsh hobbled to the point that I wonder why he didn't die in HoA. Even more questions about Kelsier, etc., etc. Basically, most of BoM proved to be irrelevant for TLM, which is some significant breaking of promises. I liked TL, but maybe BoM, which I also liked very much, should have been a different book if Sanderson didn't intend to explore most of the things that it introduced until era 3?

The dude was an excellent Seeker - he detected Wax's use of Feruchemy(!), which is supposed to be very difficult. So, maybe this was his native ability and he just trained for years after getting his A-steel spike and proved to be talented. His pewter game was quite mediocre, I felt. He clearly only had it for durability/convenience.

Oh, I think that Sazed absolutely lied, but in a third way. I believe that he personally put a thumb on the scale so that Wax's experiment would produce lerasium. Because when Wax asked what Harmony has done to him in chapter 66, Sazed said "But it didn't work as well as I'd hoped". In my book he as good as admitted that the second explosion was planned by him. VenDell also must have been prepared to steal the godmetals under everybody's noses so neatly, without leaving any traces. IMHO, ettmetal has more Ruin than Preservation, just like Harmony does, and Wax's method _does_ normally only result in atium. Which the kandra are now dutifully producing for Marsh's use. Except for this one time when Harmony needed it to be otherwise.

...want Marsh to be weak? Each for his own reasons - Kel because Marsh sometimes works for Harmony perhaps, while the latter maybe because of something that he sees in the future? Because that's the only way that I can explain Marsh being almost at the death's door due to lack of atium in TLM. Kelsier works with people who were born 1-2 millenia previously and while some of their longevity is likely time-dilation, they also must have ways to significantly slow aging. Harmony could have prolongued Marsh's life - there is a WoB that TLR could have made himself immortal via Connection manipulation, if he had thought to figure out how to do it while he held the power of the Well. Surely Sazed knows how. I equally don't believe for a second that he didn't know how to produce some atium, either natively or by splitting his metal. I'd also point out that kandra stole both atium and lerasium from Wax's lab on Harmony's instructions and could have taken atium to Marsh, which would have allowed him to participate in the action. Harmony clearly could locate him at any time, as the interlude with the police demonstrated. But he basically made Marsh sit out a close brush with the alleged end of their world, by witholding atium until the dust settled. And it isn't like Harmony wants Marsh gone, seeing how he occasionally invests him with Shardic power to give the last walk to the souls of the dead, and how he established a cover for continued atium supply for him vis-a-vis Kelsier. I have previously mentioned in one of the book reaction threads that Marsh being conveniently incapacitated during TLM felt far too contrived to me. Now, if Harmony arranged it that way for reasons it is slightly better, but then I'd like an explanation for what these reasons were at some point. I also don't entirely understand why Marsh is still around, if he isn't allowed to act, lest he upstages the new protagonists. Won't the problem persist into Era 3? Is it just because he is the closest thing to a sliver of Ruin that they have, while Kel is a sliver of Preservation and Sazed is both?

Could the Band-napping have been a heist of Kelsier's? He seems to be quite active in the South and he was there immediately prior to the ambassador switch. He might have had access to off-world connection-dampening devices that allowed the admiral to fool everybody into believing that the Bands were drained. I doubt that this was the case - it would be a massive waste to introduce such an artefact, explain nothing about how and why it came to be, or why it was abandoned and then just destroy it. Because the drained Bands are nothing but a piece of metal.

But Kelsier must have used Feruchemy, somehow, to make that copper memory storage in BoM. The one Wax uses and views in the BoM epilogue. So, maybe the Bands did work for him. I am completely at loss as to why he chose to abandon them, though. Did somebody double-cross him? Did Harmony force him to?

In addition to the fact that he had no health stored to start the process and no time - all his bendalloy was barely enough to pull the bomb disruption off, compounding via allomancy may be a skill that needs to be learned and refined with experience. That Steel Inquisitor with feruchemical speed in HoA didn't yet figure out how to do it, even though we now have confirmation that he was theoretically capable of it.

This is very interesting - does it mean that the broken piece of Ishar's Honorblade will crumble to dust when he repairs it? I was hoping that someone - Hoid or a Ghostblood, has snagged it and we'd be able to learn it's Metallic Arts traits. Pretty sure that a combination of Seekers and A/F Tin would be able to detect those. Leeching grenades, Duralumin and Nicrosil grenades, etc., should be able to make short work of both the stormlight infusing the Radiants and in the first case maybe even the storages themselves. We don't know that they work between star systems or that hauling Oathgate spren out of Rosharan space isn't orders of magnitude more difficult than doing so to Radiant ones. Anyway, my view is that currently no powers or magi-tech that Rosharans have is portable beyond their system, not even non-sapient spren in fabrials. Though I suspect that removing Honor's tone from stormlight, as Navani has done, might de-couple it from Roshar and allow it to be transported elsewhere, and, in fact, that's what purified Dor are - Dor without their tone. Whereas Scadrians don't suffer from such a limitation. And they might be able to make artificial perpendicularities by just bringing enough ettmetal and assembling it into a pile. OTOH, they are far from being able to defeat Rosharans on their own turf, because given effectively unlimited investiture Radiants and Co. are absurdly powerful.

No, there are plenty of commoner Metalborn in Era 2. They get frequently mentioned as a normal part of everyday life... but sre almost never actually seen on page, unless they are criminals for Our Heroes to fight. Which doesn't compute - Metallic Arts could be a life-changing advantage for a normal person, since it is specifically mentioned in SoS that allomancers of useful metals are well payed. Slider cooks and Steelrunner food delivery make zero sense. Sliders are among the more rare mistings, how likely is it that one would be a decent cook in the bargain? And they should be very expensive, since burning bendalloy extensively involves premature aging. And Steelrunner food delivery?! A bicycle would be much swifter, unless they have like, 2-hour shifts and store for the rest of the day. And again, it should cost a bundle. Private security for the Houses, financial institutions, etc. should have payed quite well, given the threat of Metalborn criminals. For those who don't need such full-time or maybe need more specialized aid, there should have been professional Metalborn mercenaries/bounty hunters/private investigators to hire for specific cases, which constabulary could also occasionally resort to. I really dislike the comic superhero/queen bee mentality, where protagonists and villains are constantly the only powered ones on the scene and everybody else is hopelessly overmatched and useless. Yea, but in the absence of allomantic security/law enforcement/sports teams, there is little application for a Nicroburst. I guess they could team up with a Pulser to keep expensive delicacies fresh for a long time?

I don't think that Skybreakers are the only people in Cosmere concerned with legalities, nor do I think that Kelsier would still be stuck on Scadrial once the Ghostbloods figure out how to move spren to other systems. Nor do they have to fly over deep water - the bay would be relatively shallow and there are other ships to provide them with anchors between the coast and their targets. These people aren't Skybreakers, IMHO.

Illogically, we have seen no Metalborn among the constabulary _or_ security forces in Era 2, apart from that one Seeker employed by Winsting, a couple of Coinshot messengers working on contract and a mention of a single Leecher who removes metals from the already (somehow) arrested. Metalborn criminals have free run of the place, unless Wax and Wayne and with later addition of Marasi get themselves involved! Which actually diminishes accomplishments of the protagonists, IMHO, but it seems that Sanderson wanted to reserve routine use of the Metalborn, among the police, etc. for Era 3. It feels very contrived, but what can you do? Ditto the non-use of the medallions even by the Ghostbloods(!) in TLM.

Maybe the flask did fall close enough that they found it? Because why would Wax have thought that he had some in his vials, but not realized what it meant? I am also not sure that his familiarity with how super-charged Bands felt would have led him to detect his new extremely weak powers, if he has them. OTOH, didn't he still have his Pathian earring in on the ship, which may be a weak A-pewter spike?

I am with you about everything else, but I really want new Era 3 characters to be from more normal backgrounds, i.e. not rich descendants of the Era 1 and 2 characters and not orphaned street urchins. Middle class, working class, etc. I'd dearly like to see how awakening of Metallic talents affect lives of such people, given their potential to be life-changing. And to finally learn how new snapping happens and whether it is required for ferrings too! Now that I think about it, adolescence must be even more stressful on Scadrial, with everyone desperately hoping to manifest a cool power, only to become more and more disappointed as years pass...

Hemalurgic constructs could only be affected by emotional allomancy when Ruin allowed it, which he didn't, towards the end of HoA. Not to mention that Marsh just might have an A-copper spike. Or just worn an aluminium hat/helmet like Magneto? And there is this - why is Marsh still around if he is so vulnerable and useless? Why didn't Sazed just make him back into a human and maybe Mistborn? Didn't Marsh deserve it, after all his suffering and heroic resistance?

She can only control those with trellium spikes and Harmony can strongly invest Marsh when he chooses, which ought to keep any other Shard influence away. Also, Ars Arcanum says that the weight of so many spikes necessitates long periods of recovery. So, Marsh could have helped part of the way, but then had to tap out towards the end. That would have made much more sense to me. Honestly, at this point Sanderson keeping Marsh alive feels like a mistake to me. I was flabbergasted to find out that he was, when I first read the annotations to the first trilogy, ditto Kelsier. I now see why Kelsier is still around, but Marsh is apparently only there for unnecessary, largely impotent cameos... Not to mention that Ruin is half of the very fabric of Scadrial and it's people, and hemalurgy is _his_ art. Reasonably, he should have been able to affect Scadrians with it much more strongly than any foreign Shard.

I don't think that she'd be Hoid's apprentice. Sanderson said that of his 3 apprentices we know the one in Secret Project 4 best, and we don't know them as well as her. Not to mention that she is already quite cosmere-aware, is somewhat antagonistic towards Hoid and works for somebody ditto.

So, was anybody else surprised to see that North and South aren't actually divided by an ocean, but are on the same landmass? Did Harmony move the South when he was re-making the world? And, I guess, the southerners just fly over the water because there are more different dangerous air currents over land, or something? Is there something on the other side of the world, I wonder? Or is it essentially a one-continent world?

Not really. IIRC, there is a WoB that Mistborn do live a little longer due to their investment and he could have used cadmium to skip uneventful periods of time. Unclear. I am glad that he is no longer around, though, because the way Marsh was kept out of the action was extremely contrived and unconvincing, and with Spook it would have been even worse.